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A Brief Introduction

2015.

15 years ago, on September 13, 2000, a meteor- too small to be detected, but travelling at 99% of the speed of light- smashed into Antarctica. The sheer energy and force of the impact vaporised the southern polar ice cap, sent shockwaves throughout the southern hemisphere and even altered the Earth's axis.

Two billion people died in the first day as cataclysmic tidal waves and tsunamis cleansed the coastlines and countries in the southern hemisphere, which were followed by massive inland flooding. The water levels rose and with it, the coasts fell away beneath the waves. The sheer force of the explosion shook the mantle of the Earth, disturbing tectonics and creating earthquakes, even in the most secure places. The Yellowstone supervolcano erupted prematurely, belching sun-obscuring gases and smoke into the air above the United States, and an earthquake shattered the city of Paris as deep forces split the very earth it was built upon.

This event, the most destructive and disruptive of its kind in human history, is known as Second Impact.

The period immediately following Second Impact would become infamous for its chaos, savage violence and ugly, disgusting horror. Worldwide food and resource shortages and refugee crises led to wars all over the world as old enemies capitalised on the total collapse of global security, whilst other nations moved to expand their own power, or secure their own safety at the expense of others. A further billion people died in this period from food shortages and war.

When the smoke had cleared, the world's shape had changed irrevocably. The disaster flooded large portions of land and inundated islands across the world, and the shifting of the Earth's axis had unforseen global climate effects. Some areas of the world have been rendered totally unliveable, whilst others have been locked in monoseasonal states. The United Nations, once a mediating force in the world, has become an organisation with real, measurable force, boasting an actual military composed of soldiers from the world over- a semblance of a world government, there to organise and to keep everyone in line.

Fifteen years. It has taken fifteen years for the world to regain some sort of coherency, some level of normalcy. Human ingenuity, human science and human perseverance have kept civilization alive when it was on the brink.

Nevertheless, the scars remain. No one who survived Second Impact emerged unscathed.

The next generation- those who were not yet alive by the time of Second Impact, or those who were too young to remember- it is upon the shoulders of these people, still children, that the weight of the world will fall. Upon their shoulders will be the burden to repair and rebuild, to aspire to ever greater heights…